quête:j mix factory

As a founding member of Dublin experimental folk group Lankum, Ian Lynch explores submerged leylines of music and song. Forging a musical path that is all at once dark, mysterious and foreboding, but ultimately transcendental. His new solo project One Leg One Eye sees him taking a fresh approach to musical arrangement culminating in a sound that is more rooted in the raw aesthetics of second wave black metal than contemporary folk. The project was born across 2021, a period in which Lynch was able to enjoy the freedom of experimenting and exploring different paths of sound design without expectation or pressure. Seeking out interesting settings to record music and gather field recordings, there are several environments, external and interior, whose respective essence have seeped into the spirit of the music and come to represent Lynch’s artistic approach and development with this singular debut album, …And Take The Black Worm With Me. Rediscovered spaces in Dublin and the familiar enclave of his bedroom are intrinsic to the distinct and sometimes harrowing atmosphere conjured throughout the album’s five enveloping compositions. One particular location, an abandoned factory where his father worked when Ian was a child, provided a space of great inspiration and intrigue during this time. Lynch frequently visited the large abandoned warehouse and sang with his shruti box, contented in his solitude. ‘I’d Rather Be Tending My Sheep’, grew into existence from those initial sessions, eventually finding a home as an emotive centrepiece to the album. Reflecting on the overall recording of …And Take The Black Worm With Me, Lynch says, “Everything I was doing with these songs was all kind of new to me; experimenting with different sounds, textures and palettes and seeing what I could come up with by piecing it all together. I spent about a year making the album. I loved the whole process because it was basically just me in my bedroom recording everything. The experience of recording like this and having my own time to do it was amazing. I could focus on recording a specific element and happily spend all day working on that one part, doing it as many times as I wanted. At the end of the day if it didn’t feel right, I could just try it again the next day. When you’re on your own you can spend as much time as you want on particular parts until you feel that it’s absolutely perfect. I found that to be a really liberating experience. It was probably my favourite experience recording music.” The collection of songs (and their chronology) featured on …And Take The Black Worm With Me tell a story unique to Lynch’s experiences with anxiety and recognising his shadow self. Whilst the album became an outlet of personal expression for Lynch, the overarching themes and subsequent journey to confront one’s internal dichotomy of light and dark before accepting this inherent duality is universally shared. The eerie and often unsettling world contained within the album’s texturally dense opener ‘Glistening, She Emerges’, driven by the captivating drone of distorted uilleann pipes, immediately immerses the listener in this transportive work. It descends with a great heaviness, yet woven throughout the arrangement is a fascinating and indescribable entity that draws you further into this otherworldly dimension. This mood continues as the tracklist progresses and transitions into Lynch’s haunting realisation of ‘Bold and Undaunted Youth’ which further demonstrates a cinematic influence to Lynch’s compositional style. Sonically, Lynch effectively builds an impressively vast terrain with brilliantly murky lo-fi recording techniques and an unshakable curiosity to move beyond conventional structures and play with the timbre of the instruments available to him. From recording hurdy-gurdy or concertina to tape and experimenting with loops and effects pedals to stitching field recordings together, there’s an intimacy established between Lynch and his audience established through the simultaneously eerie and beautiful tones courting through …And Take The Black Worm With Me. This culminates in ‘Only the Diceys’, the extraordinary closing track in which we reach a place of resolution mapped into the album’s narrative structure. Mixed by longtime collaborator John ‘Spud’ Murphy in his Dublin-based Guerrilla Sounds Studio and mastered by Harvey Birrell …And Take The Black Worm With Me features contributions from Ruth Clinton (Landless) on church organ and vocals by Laurie Shanaman (Ails, Ludicra). Of Shanaman’s participation, in particular, which further illustrates the lo-fi and DIY ethos to the recording, Lynch says, “Laurie is my favourite black metal vocalist of all time and so I reached out to her hoping to have her involved in some way. She did, and she features on the opening track by providing some incredible screams. She recorded them into her phone and sent them over to me; what appears on the album is literally a phone recording of her screaming in her kitchen!” …And Take The Black Worm With Me continues Ian Lynch’s groundbreaking work with Lankum; recontextualising traditional forms and generating new spheres of music in his wake, confirming his status as one of the most interesting and innovative artists working in Ireland today.

The Celtic folk-punk band’s third album, pressed on Eco Mix Tobacco vinyl. Featuring a guest appearance by Lucinda Williams, Within A Mile Of Home finds Flogging Molly more mature and polished, but never losing the frenetic energy of their live shows.

third album, "Magic Seeds". The record represents his most personal and collaborative work and blends live recordings and analogue synths to create an organic, rhythmic sound reminiscent of trip-hop and hip-hop.

"Magic Seeds" explores themes of growth and reconnection, featuring unexpected musical moments and influences from 90s electronic music to neoclassical. Tracks like "Smoke in the Air" and "Inner Child" highlight his ability to balance emotional peaks with deep, moody atmospheres. The album’s dynamic range and authenticity reflect James's commitment to musical freedom and societal reflection, making it a compelling sonic collage of his recent experiences.

Over the past few years, Leifur James has steadily built a reputation as a vital new voice in electronic music on both sides of the Atlantic. He’s played prestigious London venues like the Barbican and Village Underground in London and toured Europe, as well as being named Pitchfork and KCRW’s ‘best new music’ in the US, and his music has been championed by the likes of tastemakers Gilles Peterson, Mary Anne Hobbs, Bradley Zero and actor Cillian Murphy, and from BBC 6Music to NTS via KCRW and RMC Italia. James has also enjoyed further flagship press support from Consequence of Sound, Clash, CRACK, Passion of the Weiss, XLR8R, Complex, MixMag, DJ Mag, The Vinyl Factory, and more

Over the past few years, Giulio Erasmus has been carving out his very own musical idiom, referencing the fragmentative cause-and-effect possibilities of soundsystem culture. Accompanied for the occasion by The End Of The Worm, the recording of this concert highlights the futurist intentions of early 80s underground music in the UK and beyond. Although the expression is clear, there's continuous room for exploration and innovation. With heavy delay effects often cut short, metallic percussion, murky vocals, deconstructed electronics, and miniaturist melodies with snippets of the grandiose and the absurdly urban, all tracks here are patient, explorative, and freeform. Through curves of darkness and curves of light, this is a choreography of ideas, a passing infatuation that runs deep.

Giulio Erasmus was a member of D.U.D.S, Handle, and released his first solo outing, Re-Adjustment, in 2021. His second album, called Second Attempt, was released to acclaim in 2024 and hailed as an extremely modern take on the possibilities of underground pop through the extended ripples of soundsystem culture. Being the son of musical royalty, his father is legendary Factory Records co-founder Alan Erasmus, is almost too easy a reference. Giulio taps into 80s counterculture sonic experiment as a universal musical language that allows for futurism and fragmentation, reversing narrative logic and the transmission of musical ideas.

This recording of the amazing live performance by Giulio Erasmus & The End Of The Worm beautifully captures the investigative and unforgiving nature of all the instrumentalists that were on stage on that warm night last August in Eupen, Belgium. Through spirals of ideas, fragments, and experiment, they built a vapourous yet focused suggestion of openness and endless possibilities.

This live incident involved:
Fiona Brunet, Paul Cossé, Romain Simon, Lola Lextrait, Guyilo Erasmus

Recorded and mixed by Etienne Foyer

Back with a bang! "Road To Happiness" marks the triumphant return of Manchester"s one and only Dislocation Dance - after a 7-year long hiatus. The new album - their sixth - features ten new and fresh songs. Main songwriters Ian Runacres (guitar/vocals) and Phil Lukes (bass/vocals) most probably never sounded better. Kinda like Manchester"s Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards they create killer grooves a la Chic and The Real Thing. Melodies galore & disco euphoria plus beautiful vocals. To Love And Be Loved! Daft Punk meets Everything But The Girl. Ian Runacres formed DD in Manchester, and soon got trumpet player Andy Diagram on board who later joined The Pale Fountains and James. They created their unique mix of Post-Punk, New Wave, Jazz, Disco, 60s French Pop and Soundtracks. The band played their first ever gig at the legendary Factory in Manchester, recorded sessions for John Peel, Janice Long and Kid Jensen, and went on their own eclectic journey. Always maintaining their unique DD sound. Now they are back. With a truly fabulous album. On Marina - the perfect home for them. Let"s get (it) on... the road to happiness.

On the Mixbone EP, two tracks from Eric Copeland’s 2017 record Goofballs get reworked by five of leftfield electronic music’s heaviest hitters. The Goofballs LP finds the Black Dice founding member conducting hectic, dancefloor-oriented experiments; The Vinyl Factory called it a “mangled, spangled journey into the fringes of industrial disco and hallucinatory club tackle.” Mixbone capitalizes on this direction with remixes that recontextualize and reshape the propulsive energy of the original songs into wholly different forms.

New York techno powerhouse and Allergy Season boss Physical Therapy contributes two aptly named takes on “Mixer Shredder” – the “Tegel Mix” churns with industrial EBM low-end, and the breakbeat and wubby bassline make the “Gatwick Mix” unmistakably English. NHK yx Koyxen remixes Eric for the second time, with a jittery and woozy electro interpretation of “Neckbone.” Cooper Saver, best known for his Far Away parties in Los Angeles, turns in one of the most unexpected remixes, keeping it 4/4 and creating what sounds like Shep Pettibone making acid house.

Coming off of her 2017 EP on Technicolour/Ninja Tune, Machine Woman decided to remix both tracks. With “Neckbone,” she adds a barely-discernible robotic narrative vocal, allegedly about Ryan Gosling. “Mixer Shredder,” on the other hand, travels from hissy lo-fi techno into something quite tranquil and beautiful. And with previous releases on 1080p, Freakout Cult, and Wania, Vancouver’s LNS channels the melodic electro tones of classic Bleep-era Warp, like a lost track from LFO or Drexciya.

“Danceable” might not be the first word one thinks of when describing Eric Copeland’s solo releases. But in a manner not dissimilar to the way Black Dice shaped the parameters of experimental music, the remixes here expand the limits of what the club can and should look like.

Warehouse Find!

A Ron Wells classic intended for release in 2020 and delayed for various reasons including moving factory and our original stampers getting recycled.

This release is sourced from mint vinyl as the original masters are long gone, we have carefully restored and remastered this classic release while retaining all the character of the original. Remastering is by Bob Macc @ Subvert Central Mastering. You can be assured the tracks sound fantastic but do not suffer from the Loudness Wars while still holding their own when mixed with modern productions.

Der in Bristol ansässige irische Produzent Seamus Malliagh kreiert unter dem Namen Iglooghost ungezwungen-detailreiche, elektronische Musik, indem er Juke, Footwork, Punk, Electronica, Hip-Hop und Pop in einen Mixer wirft und ins Unendliche geht. Inspiriert von den alten Frontmännern von Factory Records, Flying Lotus, ARCA und den Metalbands seiner Jugend, entstand sein neues Album in einer alten Werkstatt an der Küste von Kent neben einer Kläranlage, umgeben von alten Stämmen, Abgasen, bedecktem Wetter und rauer See. Sein Ziel war ein Sound, der mehrere Genres miteinander vermischt und aus einer Art Küstenradiosendung aus einer fiktiven Zeitlinie strömt.

- "In jede Ecke und jeden Winkel von Tidal Memory Exos 43-minütiger Laufzeit sind so viele verrückte Ideen, Texturen und Rhythmen gestopft, dass es bemerkenswert ist, dass die Platte ihre thematische Stoßrichtung mit solcher Überzeugung beibehält. Dies ist ein dichtes, langes Stück Science-Fiction der nahen Zukunft, das abstraktes Geschichtenerzählen in gefühlsbetonte, Gänsehaut verursachende Clubmusik kleidet." - Resident Advisor

- "Iglooghosts Tidal Memory Exo ist ein Meisterwerk des Weltenbaus – denken Sie an geomagnetische Stürme, prähistorische Kreaturen, erfundene Mikro-Genres wie 'Foamtek' und 'Sporestyle'." – Dazed

With a career spanning over 50 years, U Brown is one of the last legends of Jamaican reggae. Singer, toaster and producer on the famous Hits Sound label, he has spanned the decades, leaving an indelible mark on roots reggae with hits like “Weather baloon”, “Superstar” and “Tu Shung Peng”.

His discretion and humility, despite being one of the world's greatest toasters like U Roy or Big Youth, make him a cornerstone of this music.

After many years of collaboration on stage and in the studio, U Brown and French label Irie Ites Records have teamed up to produce this new album entitled 'Still Chanting Rub A Dub'.
Comprising 12 tracks, this opus showcases U Brown's inimitable voice.

U Brown's inimitable voice and flow, recognizable from the very first notes. The themes addressed revolve around current social issues, in which the artist encourages us to surpass ourselves on a daily basis and to fight against the corruption of the most powerful. Lyrics that will speak to a wide audience!

Musicians on the album include the cream of reggae songwriters such as Roots Radics, Naram & Art, Med Tone, The Ligerians, Irie Ites All Stars, Nambo Robinson and Dean Fraser. Mixed by Roberto Sanchez and Irie Ites for a rootsy result in the image of 70s albums. A host of roots reggae greats feature on various tracks, including Eek A Mouse, Cornell Campbell, Frankie Paul, Sugar Minott, Linval Thompson, Glen Washington, Al Campbell, Naggo Morris and Trinity.

Still Chanting Rub A Dub is an album that will undoubtedly mark U Brown's long career as one of his landmark albums. A must-have for all fans of Reggae Roots and Rub-A-Dub!”

third album, "Magic Seeds". The record represents his most personal and collaborative work and blends live recordings and analogue synths to create an organic, rhythmic sound reminiscent of trip-hop and hip-hop.

"Magic Seeds" explores themes of growth and reconnection, featuring unexpected musical moments and influences from 90s electronic music to neoclassical. Tracks like "Smoke in the Air" and "Inner Child" highlight his ability to balance emotional peaks with deep, moody atmospheres. The album’s dynamic range and authenticity reflect James's commitment to musical freedom and societal reflection, making it a compelling sonic collage of his recent experiences.

Over the past few years, Leifur James has steadily built a reputation as a vital new voice in electronic music on both sides of the Atlantic. He’s played prestigious London venues like the Barbican and Village Underground in London and toured Europe, as well as being named Pitchfork and KCRW’s ‘best new music’ in the US, and his music has been championed by the likes of tastemakers Gilles Peterson, Mary Anne Hobbs, Bradley Zero and actor Cillian Murphy, and from BBC 6Music to NTS via KCRW and RMC Italia. James has also enjoyed further flagship press support from Consequence of Sound, Clash, CRACK, Passion of the Weiss, XLR8R, Complex, MixMag, DJ Mag, The Vinyl Factory, and more

Krauty electrocis from FACTORY FLOOR re-promoted now! The music is taken from a project originally commissioned by London's Science Museum to live score Fritz Lang's 1927 cinematic landmark, Metropolis on its 90th anniversary. The band performed the score live at the Science Museum's IMAX in April 2017 in an event that was part of the acclaimed Robots exhibition. This new release is a studio recording of the 150 minute score, recorded in its entirety and mixed by Nik Void with the exception of the tracks `Heart of Data' and `Babel' which was mixed by award-winning producer Marta Salogni. It's something of a rite of passage for electronic artists to compose music for the classic sci-fi movie Metropolis, and with the simply named Soundtrack for a Film, Factory Floor join the ranks of Giorgio Moroder and Jeff Mills. ... While Soundtrack for a Film is subtler than Factory Floor's albums, it still bears the duos signature approach. ... Soundtrack for a Film also takes Factory Floor's skill at making expansive, evolving tracks to its logical conclusion, and the album could be heard as one two-and-a-half-hour cut. Despite its length, Gurnsey and Void never lose focus thanks to their carefully chosen motifs. ... As Factory Floor balance the organic and mechanical aspects of Metropolis and their music on Soundtrack for a Film, they achieve the best of both worlds -- a commissioned work that's just as original as their own albums. - Available as a box set comprising four 12" vinyl on the band's own imprint H/O/D Records. The artwork is by British artist Haroon Mirza adapted and arranged by Nik Void in collaboration with illustrator Sam Moore.

The eighth and latest slate of refined retro-futuristic synth-pop by Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride aka Xeno & Oaklander is named after and inspired by "the study of what not to do, a negative image of a positive, the other side, the other:" 'Via Negativa (in the doorway light)'. Recorded in the fall of 2023 at their modernist Connecticut home fashioned into a two-story synthesizer laboratory and mixing studio, the album is uniquely visionary in spirit yet precision in execution, a contrast central to the duo’s enduring chemistry. Embryonic piano sketches were translated to nuanced modular systems, which McBride weighted with "harmonic padding," tuned percussion, and a spectral transfer device capable of "rendering spasms of rhythmic overtonal filigree." Despite the technological complexity of their craft, emotively the songs require no deciphering – these are technicolor widescreen anthems of the cybernetic age.

The eponymous opening track sets the pace, soaring sleekly over glittering synths and call-and-response vocals about arias, shattered light, and faces in stereo. From there the record expands and contracts, cycling through a gallery of moods and masks, animated by the band’s fascination with drama, "the idea of personae," and theatrical characters. Track by track, a murky, tragic backstory reveals itself: forlorn figures navigating a treacherous mercury mine, alternately poisoned by fumes or buried in collapsing caverns. The tension between Teutonic, utopian synthetic pop and lyrical narratives of ghosts in silos, ruined mills, and the traumas of mineral excavation creates a compelling friction, alternately futurist and obsolete, elevated and subterranean. Wendelbo describes the music’s polarities perfectly: "The heavy machinic din of extraction in contrast with the enchantment of the mined precious gems and metals."

From bilingual odes to bloodstones ("O Vermillion") to cosmic chrome dance floor classics ("Lost & There" "The present tense can never feel real / So many pasts conspire in the burning sun") to strutting EBM sensualities ("Actor's Foil"), Xeno & Oaklander re-prove themselves masters of the axis of technology and poetry, snaking cables and synesthesia, mining melodies and myths across 15 years of focused artistry. Theirs is a muse still gilded and gleaming, burnished red and silver, attuned to "the unobservable, the unfamiliar, that which you don’t see directly."

The eighth and latest slate of refined retro-futuristic synth-pop by Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride aka Xeno & Oaklander is named after and inspired by "the study of what not to do, a negative image of a positive, the other side, the other:" 'Via Negativa (in the doorway light)'. Recorded in the fall of 2023 at their modernist Connecticut home fashioned into a two-story synthesizer laboratory and mixing studio, the album is uniquely visionary in spirit yet precision in execution, a contrast central to the duo’s enduring chemistry. Embryonic piano sketches were translated to nuanced modular systems, which McBride weighted with "harmonic padding," tuned percussion, and a spectral transfer device capable of "rendering spasms of rhythmic overtonal filigree." Despite the technological complexity of their craft, emotively the songs require no deciphering – these are technicolor widescreen anthems of the cybernetic age.

The eponymous opening track sets the pace, soaring sleekly over glittering synths and call-and-response vocals about arias, shattered light, and faces in stereo. From there the record expands and contracts, cycling through a gallery of moods and masks, animated by the band’s fascination with drama, "the idea of personae," and theatrical characters. Track by track, a murky, tragic backstory reveals itself: forlorn figures navigating a treacherous mercury mine, alternately poisoned by fumes or buried in collapsing caverns. The tension between Teutonic, utopian synthetic pop and lyrical narratives of ghosts in silos, ruined mills, and the traumas of mineral excavation creates a compelling friction, alternately futurist and obsolete, elevated and subterranean. Wendelbo describes the music’s polarities perfectly: "The heavy machinic din of extraction in contrast with the enchantment of the mined precious gems and metals."

From bilingual odes to bloodstones ("O Vermillion") to cosmic chrome dance floor classics ("Lost & There" "The present tense can never feel real / So many pasts conspire in the burning sun") to strutting EBM sensualities ("Actor's Foil"), Xeno & Oaklander re-prove themselves masters of the axis of technology and poetry, snaking cables and synesthesia, mining melodies and myths across 15 years of focused artistry. Theirs is a muse still gilded and gleaming, burnished red and silver, attuned to "the unobservable, the unfamiliar, that which you don’t see directly."

Recorded by Michael Perez-Cisneros
Mixed and Mastered by Dave Darlington
Recorded live at the Village Vanguard March 30 - April 2 2022


All compositions by Gilad Hekselman except:
Equinox by John Coltrane
Everything Happens to Me by Matt Dennis
Cover by
Cover photo by Josh Goleman
Produced by Gilad Hekselman

All rights of the manufacturer and owner of the recorded material reserved. Unauthorized public performance, file sharing, broadcasting, copying, giving away or resale of this LP is strictly prohibited.

Fronted by former South London lovers rock vocal harmony group, Alpha (sisters Jackie & Jean Heron and Marlene Richardson), Take Three was the brain-child of writer/producer trio "S.H.E." - Steve Sinclair, Peter Hinds & Kevin Ellis.

Meeting each other at The Factory community centre in Paddington (now known as the Yaa Asantewa centre and in the last few years, The Yaa Centre) Steve & Kevin began a partnership writing and directing their own theatre productions as part of The Black Theatre Co-Op, which called the centre home at the time. When a song they had written together for one of their productions received praise and plaudits, the path toward writing and producing records began, bringing in more seasoned hand Peter Hinds - formerly a member of key brit funk groups Light of the World and Beggar & Co, and player with Incognito, Imagination & Loose Ends - to complete the circle.

Take Three represented the first project for a creative partnership that would spawn multiple projects/aliases spanning the UK soul, funk & dance scenes, and still continues to this day. With this compilation we showcase for the first time the group's combined output as Take Three, complete with previously unreleased material.

Dame Area's highly anticipated fourth studio album, "Toda la verdad sobre Dame Area" ("The Whole Truth about Dame Area"), a collaboration with the renowned labels Mannequin Records and Humo Records.

Formed in 2017 within the vibrant underground scene of Barcelona's Màgia Roja club, Dame Area comprises the Italian-Catalan duo Silvia Konstance and Viktor Lux Crux. They fuse industrial-tribal polyrhythms with minimalist synth basslines, drawing profound inspiration from avant-garde masters such as Esplendor Geometrico, Throbbing Gristle, Suicide, Einstürzende Neubauten, Can, Coil, Swans, Big Black, and Wolf Eyes.

This record represents a new phase in Dame Area's discography. It's a big step up in terms of sound, composition and ideas. This record it's the perfect representation of what they have been playing live the last three years and what most people know them for. Also it serves as a companion piece to 2022’s Toda la mentira sobre Dame Area ("All The Lies About Dame Area"), which had a stronger focus on melody, while this latest record is more aggressive and industrial-influenced, with a greater emphasis on percussion.

Tracks like the Suicide-influenced "Si no es hoy cuando es" and "Sempre Cambiare" are an onslaught of industrialism and experimentalism—formidable, volatile, and unpredictable avant-garde subversion. Silvia explains, "One of our biggest influences is doing what our influences wouldn't do. We're more into dynamics and structures atypical of electronic music, with changes in time signatures, starts and stops, and dynamics more typical of rock music. We use any musical idea from any genre. Some songs on the album are based on flamenco rhythms, others influenced by '60s experimental pop, heavy metal, or contemporary electronic music."

The confrontational "Vengo dall'aldilà" accelerates with heavy percussion, while "Tu me hiciste creer" builds into a rhythmic, transcendent noise of yelled vocals and hypnotic beats. Viktor adds, "This song took us more time to complete than any other we have recorded. It was a very organic process, evolving slowly from some instrumental percussive stuff we were doing live. Then we started using feedback as a rhythmic element (through a metallic sheet), and this was the first song where we incorporated this element, typical of noise-rock and experimental rock."

Elsewhere, "Esto Es Nuestro Ruido" represents a manic, eclectic form of contemporary industrial music, post-punk, and EBM. Silvia notes, "It's the first album we recorded outside a studio. Although we've been playing live with metallic percussion and floor tom from the very start, in the studio, with some exceptions, it was mostly sample-based until now. On Toda la verdad sobre Dame Area, all drums and almost all metallic percussion have been recorded live."

With a growing reputation as one of the best live bands around since their inception, Dame Area has toured extensively across Europe, performing at renowned festivals like Atonal, CTM, Nuits Sonores, Dour, and Fusion, as well as legendary clubs such as Berghain, Tresor, Apolo, and Spook Factory.

Recorded at Sol de Sants Studios and Estudio Hermetic between August and November 2023

Silvia Konstance: vocals, synths, percussions, electronics, production
Viktor L. Crux: synths, drums, percussions, electronics, production
Mixing and additional production by Guillermo Sánchez Rojo
Mastering by Paul Mac at Hardgroove Mastering
Designed by Leo Sousa
Photography by Fabio Calabretta
Photo concept by Dame Area

2024 repress

Rush Hour’s RSS series excels in unearthing buried treasure, offering a second chance for artists and releases that have long been overlooked. That’s certainly the case with ‘Witches’, the superb sole single by British 1980s wave trio Zenana.

Originally released on seven-inch by the tiny PRM label in 1986, ‘Witches’ was the product of a sister-brother songwriting team whose music was mostly recorded in the front room of a terraced house in Nanpean, a small industrial village in Cornwall, England’s most south-westerly county. While the single was infectious, impeccably produced and dancefloor-ready, it sold in limited quantities at the time.

Zenana’s story can be traced back to the early 1980s, when singer-songwriter Anita Tedder founded the all-female trio as a vehicle for her musical ambitions. To bring her songs to life, she joined voices with her brother Mike, an early adopter of electronic music who had built a studio – nicknamed MFR, short for ‘Mike’s Front Room’ – in his Cornish home.

Countless Zenana tracks were recorded at ‘MFR’ between 1984 and ’86, with the resultant demo cassette securing the band a management contract, a slew of live bookings, a video shoot and even a television appearance. Buoyed by this underground success, they headed to the remote Sawmills Studio in Cornwall – famously only accessible by boat – to re-record ‘Witches’, a song inspired by local folk tales of witches gathering near Mike’s home.

While this version of ‘Witches’ failed to make an impact at the time, it has become something of a cult classic following its’ rediscovery by crate digger Kiernan Abbott – and subsequent championing by other dusty-fingered DJs including Antal, Skyrager, Trevor Jackson and Luke Una – in early 2023. The buzz inspired Zenana to perform live again for the first time in decades, with the story of their surprise comeback being covered by British media outlets including the BBC and (more surprisingly) the Daily Mail.

Now presented in re-mastered form, ‘Witches’ is a genuinely slept-on gem. Propelled forwards by punchy drum machine beats, a killer synth bassline and fizzing keyboard sounds, the song benefits greatly from strong vocals and an extra-percussive middle eight layered with vocalisations, cosmic spoken word sections and swirling noises.

It comes backed by a brand-new extended ‘spell of love’ courtesy of Bristol duo Bedmo Disco, AKA music journalist Matt Anniss (author of Join The Future: Bleep Techno and the Birth of British Bass Music) and DJ/production partner Gareth Morgan. Anniss is a long-time friend of Mike and Anita Tedder who has fond memories of visiting Mike’s home studio with his family around the time that ‘Witches’ was recorded.

Working from Zenana’s original MFR eight-track recording (tapes of the single version were lost years ago), Anniss and Morgan have turned in the extended ‘dance mix’ the track never had first time around. More atmospheric, clandestine and dancefloor-focused, it offers authentic nods to New York proto-house, mid-80s Shep Pettibone dubs, and the pioneering synth-pop productions and dub mixes of Factory Records regular Martin Rushent.

Belarusian post-punk / synth pop group Molchat Doma have always exuded the kind of brutalist aesthetic of the architecture that adorns their album art. It's cold, gray, imposing, industrial and yet there are human hearts beating within those foundations. In the wake of their breakthrough success in 2020, the trio endured a polarity of experiences, from the nadir of an uprooted life and forced relocation away from their native Minsk to the apex of headlining massive shows across the world. It was in this headspace that the band settled into their new home of Los Angeles to finish writing their fourth album Belaya Polosa, a testament to change in difficult times, a love letter to the digital pulse of the `90s, and a technicolor reinvention of the band's somber dancefloor anthems. From the opening synth swell and drum machine throb of "Ty Zhe Ne Znaesh' Kto Ya," to the goth / post-punk austerity of "Son", to the swirling electronic textures mixed with reverb-drenched guitar flourishes, expansive space, and yearning vocals of title track "Belaya Polosa" - that suggests Depeche Mode at their most reflective or The Cure at their most downtrodden - to the sultry and seductive "Chernye Cvety"_ a track reminiscent of Duran Duran's early `90s output in its fusion of dreamy guitars and authoritative mechanized beats _ and the interwoven layers of instrumentation, soaring chorus, and melodic sophistication of "Ya Tak Ustal", it's clear that Molchat Doma are operating on another level. Molchat Doma gained following with earlier albums that sound like third-generation bootlegs of banned recordings from the Eastern Bloc made after a few key entries in the Factory Records catalog were smuggled in from the West. Belaya Polosa propels them into a new direction while retaining their cold minimalist delivery they're known for. The basement grime and dirty tape-head sound of their previous work are now making space for digital luster and shimmering production values. And while Molchat Doma's broadened aural spectrum adds a synesthetic power to Belaya Polosa, the mood remains rooted in stark and unflinching self-reflection. Molchat Doma retain the duality of being both cold and feverish in their delivery while pushing their music into expanded territories through an armory of new textures. The trio continue to harness the sound of harrowing beauty thriving under harsh realities.